Lesson 11…Divine Persuasion!
Divine Persuasion…
In Hebrews 11, God is obviously trying to emphasize FAITH to us. I counted at least 25 occurences of the word “faith”.
I love what I found about faith at www.biblecommenter.com: Faith (4102/pistis) is always a gift from God, and never something that can be produced by people. In short, 4102/pistis (“faith”) for the believer is “God’s divine persuasion”.
So we can’t generate faith…we have to receive it as a gift from God – now that is a different way of thinking about faith. Think about it, what else beside “divine persuasion” could have had Noah building an ark when it had never rained. Divine persuasion surely is why Joshua and the congregation marched around Jericho and blew their trumpets until the walls came down. I mean really – who does those kinds of crazy things without a little divine intervention? LOL!
And as I examine scripture, the only thing I can find that made our Jesus marvel is faith: Now when Jesus heard [this], He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. Matthew 8:10. This verse is referring to the centurion who knew Jesus could heal his servant by just speaking the word.
On a personal note, I love the first couple of verses in this chapter. I have a biology and chemistry degree and taught high school chemistry and physics. I am not telling you this to brag. I am telling you this because as I science teacher, I am divinely persuaded that God CREATED this universe “ex nihilo” or out of nothing. Verse 3 says it all: …the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”
So this week’s assignments will be a little different. Since this chapter is just ALL about faith, I created this chart for you to fill in concerning the people who are mentioned in this faith hall of fame. Keep on marking your key words throughout this chapter.
|
Who was faithful? |
Why were they considered faithful? |
| Abel | Offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain. |
| Enoch (Gen. 5:21-24) | |
| Noah | |
| Abraham | |
| Sarah | |
| Isaac | |
| Joseph | |
| Moses | |
| Joshua (v. 30) – not mentioned by name, but by event. | |
| Rahab | |
| Many more in vv. 32-35 |
